“I could never ask for more,” said Corwin with a smile. “Gentlemen, I bid you all good night.”
“Good night, Corwin,” Shakespeare said.
“And good luck in your suit,” added Burbage, with a grin. “Come and bring your pretty Hera to see us at the theatre when we open once again.”
“If her father proves agreeable, why then I may even spring for a box up in the galleries,” Corwin replied with a smile.
“So speaks the prosperous new journeyman,” said Jack, with a heavy touch of sarcasm in his tone. “One might think that you could easily afford box seats at each performance with all of your success these days. Or perhaps ‘tis an apprentice’s frugality that still lingers out of force of habit?”
“Frugality is not a habit that I would discard as easily as some might discard a perfectly good cloak merely because it has gone slightly out of fashion,” Corwin replied, with an obvious reference to Jack’s brand new velvet cloak. “The habit lingers because it makes good sense, for either an apprentice or a journeyman, and ‘tis a habit, I might add, that you might do well to emulate. Good night, sir.”
“Do you presume, then, to instruct me?” Jack called after Corwin as he left. “You are not a master guildsman yet, sir! It ill behooves a man to put on airs above his station!”
“Oh, enough of that, now. Come sit down and have a drink, lads,” Dickens said, good naturedly. “Gentlemen,” he said, turning to the others, “allow me to present Jack Darnley and Bruce McEnery, old friends of mine from my apprentice days.”
“Well met, lads,” Burbage said jovially, moving over to make room for them, though Smythe did not think that he was truly eager for their company. Nevertheless, Burbage politely introduced himself and all the other players in their group. Stackpole brought the drinks himself, giving the two apprentices a wary eye in the process. Smythe had the distinct impression that they were no more eager for the company of players than the players were to sit with them. However, Ben Dickens seemed to provide a sort of buffer between them, acting as a conversational go between in a way that seemed to lessen the tension.
As they talked, Smythe could not decide if it was all a skillful display of diplomacy or merely a natural way that Dickens had of controlling the flow of conversation around him. The discussion centered, for the most part, on his experiences as a soldier and the things that he had seen while he was away in foreign lands. When he did not actually dominate the conversation, Dickens seemed to steer it in directions that were basically innocuous and safe, allowing the others to take part without ever losing his command of the discussion. Smythe could easily see why Ben Dickens had been so well liked by the members of the company. He possessed an easygoing charm and had a way of creating a sense of cameraderie around him. It was clear that he would have been a natural as a player. He had the way about him.
Not so Bruce and Jack, Smythe noted. They nursed their drinks, mindful that they would only be allowed the one pint each, and as they listened to Ben talk, the envy was clearly written on their faces. In the case of Bruce, it was more than merely envy; it was spiteful resentment, and ill-concealed at that.
Smythe thought it rather strange. Here they were, senior apprentices still enjoying their rowdy youth while on the threshold of becoming journeymen-which would bring them a good living and in time, with diligence and perseverence, would likely bring them wealth-while on the other hand, there was Ben Dickens, a mercenary soldier whose prospects, unless Fortune were to smile upon him, were very poor, indeed. He could only sell his sword arm to whoever needed fighting men at any given time, and while the world had not yet banished war, the employment of a soldier was often interspersed with protracted periods of peace. At present, there was no shortage of soldiers in the city searching for employment, not all of it gainful, nor even honest work. And few soldiers of fortune, a misnomer if Smythe had ever heard one, were fortunate enough to live to a ripe and whole old age. Of those who did not die in battle, many became maimed or crippled and were reduced to begging in the streets. He saw them every day, dressed in their worn-out soldier’s motley, many of them missing arms or legs. It was not a life for anyone to envy. And yet, as he watched Bruce and Jack listening to Dickens, he could see they envied him. True, he was still young and whole and healthy, but his future was as uncertain as their futures seemed assured. But perhaps they could not see that.
What they could see, though, was Molly. Perhaps because of the words she had with Dickens, or perhaps because Stackpole had chosen to serve them himself, so as to keep an eye on the troublesome twosome, Molly had not come near their tables since the pair came in. But they both noticed her, all right, and their gazes followed her everywhere she went. Smythe saw Shakespeare notice it, as well, but it did not seem as though anybody else did.
“So then,” Dickens said to them, as he f
inished off an anecdote, “if memory serves me, you lads should both be nearing the completion of your apprenticeships with Master St. John, is that not right?”
“Indeed, I have but a few months to go,” said Jack, “whilst Bruce, here, has a bit less than a year remaining. Then we shall both be journeymen, as you could have been by now, Ben, had you not run off to war.”
“Run off?” said Fleming, rising to the defense of his former protege. “By Heaven, I daresay I would scarce call putting life and limb at hazard ‘running off!’ Life in London poses fewer risks, by far, than what life as a soldier would entail. Now who could gainsay that?”
“Not I,” Jack hastily replied. “Do not mistake my meaning, good sirs. Odd’s blood, Ben always was the man you wanted at your back when things got nasty. Why, I remember that time we had a set-to with the Paris Garden Boys and that rotter, Mercutio, God curse his swarthy Roman forebears, slashed me with his stiletto. I still have the scar, see?” He pulled back the long hair from his forehead, revealing a livid scar that ran across his forehead to his temple. “Damn near took me ear off. He would’ve done for me for sure if Ben here hadn’t pulled him off and slammed his face into a wall. Blind me, you should have seen him! Mashed his nose right flat, he did, and knocked out his two front teeth. We dusted ‘em off right proper that night, didn’t we, Ben? Those were the days, eh? The Steady Boys owned the streets then, didn’t we?”
“Well, you seem to have somewhat fonder recollections of those days than I,” said Dickens, wryly. “All told, we were fortunate not to have wound up in prison or, worse yet, cut up and with our skulls busted in some alleyway.”
“And how is it any different for a soldier?” asked Bruce, with a sneer. “Tell me that, then.”
“Perhaps ‘tis not so different after all,” Dickens replied, “but at least a soldier gets paid for risking life and limb, though not nearly enough, if you ask me. And truth be told, if I knew then what I know now, why, ‘tis doubtful that I would have made the same decision. Either way, when I was with the Steady Boys, as I recall, we risked life and limb for no more reward than the thrill of breaking someone else’s skull. Even back then, I thought ‘twas rash and foolhardy to behave so, although I went along with all the others. And ‘twould seem that with your apprenticeships nearly completed, ‘tis even more rash and foolhardy to take such chances now. Odd’s blood, why risk your future, lads? You’ve worked hard for all these years, and the payoff is now nearly at hand. Why risk throwing it all away for a few thrills?”
“Well, smite me!” said Jack, with surprise. “I must say, you certainly seem changed, Ben. That does not at all sound like the Ben Dickens I once knew.”
“Perhaps he has changed, then. Perhaps he came back from the wars because he lost his nerve,” said Bruce, contemptuously.
“Here now…” Fleming began, but Dickens put his hand out, forestalling his comment. He fixed Bruce with a steady gaze, transfixing him with an unblinking stare the surly apprentice gamely tried to meet, but after a moment, Bruce found himself forced to blink and look away.
“I do not need some lickspittle street brawler to tell me I have lost my nerve,” said Dickens, softy. “When you have seen men dying on the field of battle by the thousands, when the stench of bodies swelling and bursting in the sun assails your senses til your head reels and your eyes burn, when the buzzing of the flies over the carrion fills your ears, so that you go on hearing it for days and days after the battle has been fought until you think you will go mad with it, when you have seen women and old men searching for their fallen sons amongst the corpses and when you have heard their wails of grief on finding the mutilated objects of their quest, why, then you can come and speak to me about my nerve. Until then, apprentice, best stick with your clubs and daggers and your cocksure roaring boys, posturing and puffing out their chests, and speak not to me of things that you cannot even begin to understand.”
Bruce rose to his feet with a snarl, reaching for his dagger, but before he could unsheath it, Jack grabbed his hand in both of his, preventing him from drawing it.
As Smythe and several of the others leapt to their feet, Bruce sputtered with rage as he struggled angrily against his friend. “Let me go, damn you!”
“Don’t be a fool,” Jack replied in a steady voice, maintaining his grip and strengthening it by pressing his body up close against his friend, immobilizing his arms between them. “You only have your dirk, whilst he wears a rapier. Aside from that, in the event you have not noticed, we are quite outnumbered here.”
“That does it!” Stackpole said, hefting the adze handle once again as he came out from behind the bar. “Out with you! And don’t be coming back!”
“You’ve not seen the last of us, old man,” said Bruce, sneering at him.